


Glass Asylum

by Kleenexwoman



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: 1970s, Alternate Universe - 1970s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Conspiracy Theories, Dystopia, Gen, Parallel Universes, Terrible clothing, misuse of quantum mechanics, terrible science, using the past to comment on the present, what is reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-08 10:39:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kleenexwoman/pseuds/Kleenexwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1975. THRUSH has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. While tracking down the vestiges of the organization, Illya uncovers a conspiracy that is far stranger than he had ever imagined. </p><p>EDIT: WIP on hold forever. I left a plot outline in the last chapter for those interested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Deception of the Thrush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Other echoes  
> Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?  
> Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,  
> Round the corner. Through the first gate,  
> Into our first world, shall we follow  
> The deception of the thrush?  
> —“Burnt Norton,” Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot

He is outside of the National Library in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It looms above him, a blank glass slab balanced atop a pedestal, looking for all the world like an alien spaceship that just landed amongst a cluster of trees. 

He knows it is a dream when he steps inside, because it is lined with books from top to bottom, arching above him like a cathedral. Inside, it is filled with hexagonal cells, warping as they billow away from him like the inside out a cloud or an apiary. It goes on forever, books receding into a brown mist. Bigger on the inside. 

The man at the circulation desk is wearing a brown pinstriped suit, glasses, sneakers, and a manic grin. He sticks out his hand for Illya to shake. "Johann Schmidt," he says in a thick Scottish accent, "head Librarian. Can I help you?" 

Illya takes his hand. "My name is Illya Kuryakin," he says, "and I have a book on hold." 

The reason he has come to Argentina for a library book trickles into his mind slowly, like water filling a balloon. THRUSH has created a quantum computer to help them with their calculations, but then they found out that they could alter the world by putting in whatever calculations they wanted. He must find a book, and in it will be hidden a program that will stop THRUSH forever. 

"Of course you do," Johann Schmidt says. "Everyone has a book on hold here." He waves his arms expansively at the ever-expanding shelves. "We have every book. Ever." He begins to walk deeper into the library, still waving his arms. 

Illya follows him. "How will I find the right book?" he asks. 

"I don't know. How will you?" The librarian keeps going. 

"I thought that's what you were here for," Illya says, and dream-logic suspends itself for a moment. “Why is your name Schmidt?” 

“In Argentina? Ex-Nazi, I'm sure,” the librarian says cheerfully. 

“With a Scottish accent,” Illya says flatly. 

“Helping a Russian with an English accent find a book in Argentina,” the librarian says. “Nothing strange about that, no.” He picks a leather-bound book off a circulation cart, and it turns into a rose as he hands it to Illya. “Sometimes, when people are looking for something very specific, it's easier to hide it as something else that people are looking for.” 

Illya studies the rose, and sniffs it. It smells of leather and old paper. “Is this it?” 

“How in the world should I know?” Schmidt snatches the rose back and inhales its perfume deeply. “Les Miserables, Victor Hugo. A fine vintage, but not what you're looking for.” 

Illya looks around, and the library has suddenly become covered in brown and green vines, the shelves empty of books and stuffed with flowers. “Where did the books go?” he asks. 

“They're still here.” Schmidt plucks a rose and it turns into a book in his hands, exploding suddenly like a sponge put into water. “Rose, book. Book, rose. Would a rose by any other name contain multitudes? Why, yes.”

Illya plucks a rose, and it does not turn into a book. He rips off the petals as they move through the garden-library, scattering them behind him, like a trail through a labyrinth. When he looks behind him, his trail is covered with torn-out pages. 

He runs out of petals, out of pages, and they are still lost. Schmidt is chattering away about nothing Illya can understand, disjointed bits of conversation, answering his own questions before he even asks them. The library is getting darker, deader, the vines becoming brown and hard and the petals wilting before his eyes. He snatches at flowers, afraid that they will crumble and die, the words forever lost. 

“Here we are.” Schmidt stops; it's a dead end. “There's your book.” 

Illya stares at the dead end. “How do you know that's my book?” 

“Because it's a dead end,” Schmidt says impatiently. He nods at the book growing on the blank wall before them. “Go on. Take it. It's the one you've been looking for, isn't it?” 

Illya reaches out to take the book, and watches as reality splits. His hand holds a book and a rose at the same time, juxtaposed over each other like a double exposure in a photograph, like two ghosts intersecting. 

“Just one,” Schmidt barks out. 

“Who is the other one for?” Illya asks. 

“For you,” Schmidt says. “But not you. Pick one. Signifier, or signified?” 

Book, rose. Illya closes his right eye. The rose exists. He can smell it, its delicate and sickly perfume wafting through the green, growing garden. He can hear the birds chirping if he listens hard enough. He closes his left eye instead, and now the book exists, its dusty smell of leather and paper permeating his nostrils, the library dark and mahogany around him. 

“I came for the book,” he says at last. “What use is a rose to me?” 

“All the use in the world,” Schmidt says, except he doesn't say it, he says, “Book it is then. Best weapons in the world.” 

Illya closes his right eye again, and he can see the petals of the rose unfold in a brilliant flash of light before the garden is obliterated forever, and all there is around him is the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) "The Library of Babel," Jorge Luis Borges. Also reference "The Garden of Forking Paths."  
> 2) It is who you think it is.


	2. Dreamed last night I was dreaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dreamed last night I was dreaming  
> Somebody answered my prayer  
> Cried out over my shoulder  
> Only the devil was there  
> Hold no hope for the future  
> Or good times seeing me through  
> Too good to be true  
> —“Too Good To Be True,” Tom Robinson Band

It was a cold day in February when, at 6:38 AM, Illya Kuryakin woke up, unable to move. 

Had he been captured? Tied up? No, he couldn't feel any bonds around his arms or legs, and the ceiling he saw was the same tiled ceiling he saw every morning these days, with the same water stain shaped vaguely like Argentina. 

Perhaps he had been drugged. But when? The last time he had been out in the field, anywhere, had been a week ago. No drug or toxin takes that long to kick in and then hits you all at once, not that he knows of. He tried to remember—was there any time yesterday anyone could have dosed him with anything? Muzzy with sleep, he could almost feel the memories trickle in, vague and secondhand like the recollection of a late-night movie. 

He'd spent yesterday reading the short stories of Timothy Delgado, had spent the previous week reading his novels and cross-referencing them with some highly classified scientific material. The short stories didn't throw up any red flags, but they had been intelligent and bizarre, and Illya had enjoyed reading them. 

Then he had gone to Mr. Waverly's office—no, it was Napoleon's now, but it would be Mr. Waverly's office no matter who sat behind the desk—to see if Napoleon wanted to go to dinner, to catch up on the week. Napoleon had said that unfortunately his night would consist of no sleep, much coffee, and a little Scotch. He had pointed to a pile of papers that he said contained some very worrying reports from Section VII, which he obviously had to go over himself. Illya had not said anything about the wrinkles in his suit, or the bags under his eyes. 

Illya tried to wiggle his fingers. A faint sensation of pins and needles began in his hands, and it was unpleasant enough to make him stop. He still wasn't sure if the pins and needles meant that his hands were moving, or just that he was trying hard enough to make them hurt a bit. 

Focus. Dinner. He had gone to Ho Fat's and ordered some chicken lettuce wraps. Was that where he had been drugged? He tried to move his arm, and was able to twitch the muscles, although not move it very much. Good enough. He had ordered the chicken lettuce wraps to go, had taken them home in a Styrafoam container and eaten them in front of the TV, watching an episode of Yellowjacket Greenapple, P.I. 

Could that explain the dream? The TV show was the most vivid part of the evening. Yellowjacket and his sidekick, the waifish and hip Sweet Jane, had been investigating a secret society that had taken over the publishing industry and had found a way to insert hypnotic messages into ordinary newspapers, magazines, and cookbooks. One might be reading an episode of “T.V. Guide” and find oneself suddenly convinced that the Earth was flat, or that overthrowing the government was a fine idea that would work well. 

“But if we took over their operation,” cried Sweet Jane, “couldn't we put good, benevolent messages out there?” 

Yellowjacket had twitched his impressive mustache. “Are there any benevolent messages? Isn't communication in itself a form of violence?” 

“Well,” Sweet Jane said, furrowing her dewy brow, “like, we could tell everyone to love and respect one another, for all men are brothers.” 

Yellowjacket had considered the idea and shaken his head. “It would never work,” he said. “The minds of the general populace would vomit it out, like the rotten and picked-over piece of gristle that it is.” 

Normally, Illya liked Yellowjacket's brutally sophisticated cynicism, but for some reason the sentiment had left him feeling shaken and sad. He had turned off the TV and gone to bed before the late movie. 

Now, Illya tried to wriggle his toes. Nothing. He stared at the Venetian blinds, where the sodium yellow of a New York night was slowly changing to the dirty bluish-gray of a New York morning, and in a fit of optimism he jerked his leg up. He was rewarded by a sudden eruption of blankets and a violent rush of pins and needles all up his right side. 

He grunted and rolled out of bed. A day of reading sci-fi stories, snacks laden with MSG for dinner, and a surreal spy show for a bedtime treat. No wonder he'd had strange dreams, no wonder he'd felt distant enough from his body to unable to operate it upon waking up. 

In any case, he limped out of bed, shaking his hands to awaken them. He showered briefly, the stinging water on his face bringing him even more to Earth. He made a cup of coffee, then turned on the news. 

“Gooooooooood morning, New York!” crowed the blonde anchorwoman, all teeth and candy-red lips, with a smile that never reached her wide blue eyes. “The murder index for this morning went from green to yellow.” She waved at a blank space on the screen, and a cartoonish graphic of a thermometer with blood dripping from the red mercury bulb at the bottom appeared. “The warm spell overnight produced seventeen murders, a dramatic rise from yesterday's three, and criminologists predict a rise over the weekend. So ladies, remember your mace! Ahahaha! And now to Bill with the weather.” 

“It would be better,” Illya muttered, “if they replaced you with a clip of Walter Cronkite saying, 'Today will be just like yesterday, but worse, and tomorrow will be the same.” He sipped his coffee and winced at the burnt taste. “Followed by a clip of a water-skiing squirrel.” 

He turned the TV off and went to get dressed. He chose a hideous brown turtleneck and a tweed jacket, wishing that Napoleon were going with him. Napoleon could play the milquetoast far better than Illya could. He had told Illya once that even at his meekest, hidden behind his thickest glasses and his quietest boffin personality, there was still something of the savage about him. There was nothing of the savage about Napoleon in any way. 

Armored in tweed and glasses, Illya went out to meet the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yellowjacket Greenapple, PI:   
> http://www.somethingawful.com/d/fashion-swat/retro-swat-2.php?page=9  
> http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/yellowjacket-greenapple-pi.php and http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/yellowjacket-greenapple-pi-2.php   
> http://the-otherhood.livejournal.com/
> 
> Twiggy, the water-skiing squirrel:   
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXcaFC1vF0Q


	3. Now I get a lot more down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're stoppin' me out on the freeway  
> They ask of me what I do  
> And where the hell I'm bound  
> I used to get a lot more leeway  
> Hey well now I get a lot more down  
> —“The American in Me,” Steve Forbert

Thirty minutes later, he was heading to West Babylon in a wood-paneled station wagon that, eerily, matched the colors of his jacket. The interior of the station wagon was ratty and smelled like French fries and cigarettes, and the girl who had handed him the keys had informed him that the smell, too, was part of the disguise. Illya wondered if they had somehow managed to create an artificial scent that smelled like French fries and cigarettes, or whether they just got someone to sit in the car with a packet of French fries and a couple of Camels on their lunch break if an agent requested the car. 

The dashboard binged alarmingly, and Illya sighed at the gas gauge warning. UNCLE fleet cars were supposed to be fully gassed up to avoid the embarrassing and dangerous possibility of having to pull into a gas station during a high-speed chase. This was probably some idiotic bureaucrat's idea of a cost-cutting measure. 

He pulled into an Exxon station to refuel, walked into the hut the attendant sat in, and was greeted by a familiar, unpleasant voice. 

“Now, you know that the Vigilant Citizen Hour will always bring you the latest news on the New World Order,” said the battered radio sitting on the counter. “I'm F. Ferris Fremont with the Friends of the American People—the only friend it has these days, folks—and you all know how I feel about the jackbooted thugs, Communists, and fat cats that are running the world these days, trying to oppress us under their steely grasp and force us all into their Panopticon.” 

Illya rolled his eyes. He was used to extremists of all stripes, but there was something particularly odious about F. Ferris Fremont. Perhaps it was the way his wretched little opinions and conspiracy theories seemed to insinuate themselves into the brains of others, or maybe it was simply his voice, thick and rough with the hint of what Illya was certain was an artificial drawl. 

“And none other,” F. Ferris continued, “none other are as odious to me, friends, as blood-chillingly evil, than the United Nations. Yes, that pit of snakes in thousand-dollar suits and those weasel words they call diplomacy, they're the first line of attack in the New World Order's strategy to unite the world in the name of the lies they call peace and brotherhood so they can grab it for themselves! Every man, woman and child will no longer answer to the law of the rights of man or of Jesus Christ almighty, but to the twisted lies and chains of oppression those jackals force upon us.” 

It was all old hat to Illya. As soon as F. Ferris Fremont had begun to talk about the United Nations on his show, UNCLE had begun to monitor the show—a rotating duty, as nobody wanted to do it full-time, and the one person who had agreed to had complained of migraine headaches three days in. But the content of his show had barely changed, and the only thing anybody had been able to connect him to was a couple of recluses who had been kicked out of the John Birch society for being obnoxious. But the next few sentences made Illya prick up his ears and stand by the cooler, pretending to study the array of soft drinks. 

“And likewise, folks, you know that I've been warning you about the UN's secret army for years. The black helicopters—keeping an eye on the sky lately? But until now, a whole lot of that's been speculation, and hearsay. Until now.” A rustling came from the radio, as of papers shifting in a sweaty hand. “I have here in my hand a whole boatload of information sent in by loyal listener Wally Koufax, who claims to have had an encounter with these thugs.” 

Illya vaguely remembered Wally Koufax. An ugly little redheaded man, extremely sour and uncooperative. He had been a personal assistant to a German businessman suspected of funneling money to THRUSH. That had been several years ago, when most of UNCLE was involved in chasing down fruitless leads. He was surprised it had taken Wally so long to tell anyone, if he was the type to do so. 

“Folks, what we're dealing with is a covert agency called the United Nations Command of Law and Enforcement. Now, doesn't that sound ominous? Command! And it's worse than I thought. They've got tons of gadgets and gizmos, advanced beyond anything ordinary folks like you or me could have access to...stuff that could make your life and mine a hell of a lot easier, happier, more convenient, but they prefer to keep this technology from us and use it to keep us all under control!” 

Illya's hand went to his communicator, hidden in his breast pocket amongst a small handful of other ballpoint pens. This must be what was in the worrying reports from Section VII, he thought. UNCLE didn't exactly keep themselves a deep dark secret, but they'd never formally announced their presence to the world public. This could fizzle out as people dismissed F. Ferris's words as the ravings of a madman...or it could mean the end of UNCLE as it existed. Illya felt raw and tired, not sure if he cared either way. 

“Now, they're not exactly an army, but they're mighty powerful. What happens is that they send out these guys anywhere there's a hint of instability, revolution, discord...any time the status is just a little less than quo. And they shut it all up, they keep the dissenters from dissenting, plant false evidence, assassinate people if they have to!” F. Ferris's measured tones were rising, emotion suffusing his voice. Illya imaged flecks of spittle emitting from the thick lips of the pundit, misshapen teeth chomping at the microphone like a horse on a bit. 

“Hey, buddy,” yelled the man behind the counter. “You lookin' for something?” 

Illya gave the cooler another moment of consideration before answering. “Do you carry Moxie?” 

“Naw, you gotta go down South for that. You getting any gas today?” 

Illya approached the counter and dug in his wallet for his gas ration card. A few years ago, the United States had been the subject of an oil embargo, which had caused the government to issue cards to everyone with a car restricting the days they could purchase gas and how much they could buy at one time. The embargo had been lifted within six months, but the fact had been buried deeply in the pages of the newspaper that nobody ever read, and the government had never rescinded the cards. Prices had gone up, too, and stayed up. UNCLE agents were technically entitled to cards that allowed them to purchase unlimited gas any day of the week, but most field agents preferred to mock up a few cards with more reasonable restrictions and use them as necessary. Illya drew out the card which allowed him to buy gas on weekends, and handed it to the cashier. 

“Three gallons should do it,” he said. 

The cashier studied the card and finally handed it back to Illya. “Six-fifty.” He nodded at the radio while Illya took out his cash. “Boy, that F. Ferris, he knows what he's talking about, huh?” 

“He certainly has his sources,” muttered Illya. 

“You know, he's right,” the man said. “Ain't nobody stumping for the little guy these days. Chicken in every pot—nope, nothing like that anymore.” 

“Chickens,” Illya agreed, handing over a ten-dollar bill, “seem to have gone extinct these days.” 

“That's just what I mean,” the man said. “Whole thing stinks!” He slapped his hand on the counter. “All these Commies and union bosses trying to drag the little guy down. You know, they closed down another three factories in Jersey last week?” 

“Did they now?” Illya waited patiently for the man to give him his change, but the ten-dollar bill laid on the counter, unheeded. He was tempted to simply shove the bill into the drawer and walk off. 

The man lowered his voice. “Sent all the jobs down across the border. Them Mexicans will work for rice and beans, y'know. They say it's cheaper all around, but what about the cost to us?” He shook his head mournfully. “So me and the boys, we're gonna do something about it.” 

Illya frowned. “What are you going to do?” he asked, images of burning crosses and lynchings dancing threateningly through his head. 

The man straightened up proudly. “I'm a card-carrying member of the Friends of the American People,” he said. “And we figured, well, the niggers and the fags and even the liberals had their own riots back in the day, got them everything they wanted—so what about us hard-working Americans? We gotta have our own riot.” He grinned. “Then they'll have to listen to us!” 

Despite the man's slavish devotion to the words of F. Ferris Fremont and his clear bigotry, Illya found himself sympathizing a little. It was, after all, part of the historical cycle right out of Marx—the bourgeois oppressing the proletariat, in this case taking away their livelihood in the name of profit, that god of capitalism. Naturally, the next step was for the proletariat to revolt. It was just a shame that they were doing it under such a repugnant and idiotic banner. 

“It is, certainly, a strategy,” Illya agreed. “And where and when is this riot going to take place?” 

The man grinned. “You a Friend, friend?” 

“An acquaintance, perhaps,” Illya said. 

The man shrugged. “Good enough for me, I guess.” He eyed Illya. “You don't look like you sweat much, mister, but I guess the desk jobbies got it just as hard as us working Joes these days.” 

He slid a piece of paper across the counter to Illya, and Illya almost burst out laughing. It was a flier. A flier for the riot. Illya picked it up and studied the crudely-drawn rendition of the FAP logo, an American flag with a giant eye where the field of stars would be. “A rally for the worker,” he read, “sponsored by the Friends of the American People, open to those dedicated to the cause. Starts at six sharp. Donuts and beer provided?” He squinted at the flier. 

“Donuts and beer,” the man said firmly. 

Illya grinned and tucked the flier into his pocket. “Well,” he said, “that certainly decides it for me.” 

*

Illya waited until he had swung the car out onto the street to fish his communicator out of his pocket. He paused with his finger on the button. UNCLE was getting desperate, he thought, and he was getting desperate with them—looking for evidence of THRUSH activity in the anger of a gas station worker, the pathetic donut-and-beer parties of laid-off workers. It wasn't anywhere else, and hadn't been for several years, with no apparent reason for utter lack of activity. 

Illya looked at the flier again, feeling ridiculous even as he searched for hidden messages, hidden logos. Certainly, the “Hoboken Freedom Rally” was an impotent screech of rage from men who had every right to be angry, not an outgrowth of a massively hidden plot to overthrow the government. 

Marx, and the USSR, taught that history was a cycle of growth, death, and rebirth—that as what was once new solidified, ossified, and petrified, the new would be reborn out of it and eventually destroy it, only to settle down into stasis again. Cronos eating his own children, only to be torn apart from the inside out. Illya had taken it as gospel truth, but something in him had believed as hard as he was able that the United States of America was immune from the cycle. Something shining, new and stable. 

It had been a lie, and history was not a cycle but a wheel, a wheel that eventually ground and crushed you under it. Illya could feel its weight bearing down on him, the heaviness of the years behind in no way lightened by the load of the years ahead. He could clamber on top of it and try to run in place, or he could succumb to it and let it run over him. There was no other choice, no way of derailing it. 

The new model of communicators had a frequency wheel, a way to directly contact the person you wanted to speak to rather than route your call through an operator. He called Napoleon. 

“Mmm?” Napoleon sounded muzzy and distant. “Illya? What's going on?” 

“The Friends of the American People are having what appears to be a very well-catered riot in Hoboken tonight,” Illya told him. “Now that F. Ferris Fremont has made us public knowledge, might it be a good idea to send a representative there to calm them down a bit?” 

Napoleon snorted. “Calm them down. I think you want a riot, Illya.” 

“It would alleviate the tedium,” Illya admitted. “But I thought you might like to know. I assume it's going to be a bit of flag-waving, some speeches, a few broken windows if people get into a fistfight. Maybe there will be a folksinger.” 

“Well,” Napoleon said, “it's good to know.” He sighed audibly. “Actually, that's not a bad idea. Sending a couple of representatives looking harmless and doing incredibly boring things might defuse things a little...and just possibly discredit that windbag. I'm sure we have a very dull speech about how we use our surveillance network to ensure international compliance with factory safety laws somewhere.” 

“Stay away from the subject of factories,” Illya said. “They're a bit of a sore point with the mob right now.” 

“Right,” Napoleon said, sounding distracted. “No factory talk.” 

“Napoleon,” Illya asked, “is this the first you've heard of this?” 

“Well.” Napoleon's chair squeaked once, as though he was leaning back. “Yes. Yes, in fact.” 

“Napoleon,” Illya said again, “we have an extensive surveillance network monitoring several dozen subversive groups in the United States. Why did you have to hear about something with the potential for serious violence happening this very night from someone who found it out by chance from a gas station attendant?” 

“Because,” Napoleon said slowly, as though a great answer to a great mystery was dawning on him, “nobody has been monitoring the gas station attendants.” 

And then the connection was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) The thing with the gas happened for real.   
> 2) If you think it's a Philip K. Dick reference, you're right. This applies to the rest of the story.   
> 3) Find the Watchmen.   
> 4) I'm sorry, these notes are out of order   
> 5) http://vigilantcitizen.com/


	4. science fiction writers really do not know anything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.  
> ― Philip K. Dick

Timothy Delgado lived in a small, dowdy-looking brownstone, and he greeted Illya at the door. “You're Mr. Kay from Ingenious Science Fiction, yes? Come in, please.” He was handsome, with dark hair brushed back at the temples, a Levantine nose and a long jaw, and arching eyebrows that gave his face an expression of surprise. Illya noticed that he limped, but walked as though he'd very much gotten used to it. 

“Thank you again,” Illya said, “for agreeing to this interview. Our readers are very excited.” His living room was small, but cluttered with artifacts. Illya recognized a menorah, a chalice and candlesticks with Hebrew writing inscribed on the metal, a few sheets of ancient and yellowing paper inside glass cases, and an elaborately stylized piece of metal in the shape of a hand, with bells hanging from each finger. 

Delgado shrugged. “It's not as though I'm a recluse.” He sat in a large overstuffed armchair and steepled his hands. “I see you're looking at my chamseh. It's very important to me.” 

Illya perched on a wicker-backed chair cautiously and crossed his legs. “Tell me about it.” 

“I moved to Brooklyn when I was a teenager,” Delgado said. “From California. Not the nice part—way out in the middle of the desert, where there's just hicks and coyotes for company. I ended up renting an apartment from a nice old Jewish couple, and one day, I didn't look where I was going, got hit by a car, and broke my damn leg.” He nodded at his leg that Illya had noticed had a limp. “I remember a girl standing over me, not quite touching me, calling my name. I don't know how she knew my name. All I know was that nothing hurt, and she looked like an angel. 

“Well, someone took me to the hospital. After they released me, I was still in quite a lot of pain. The leg didn't set quite right. So I managed to find a pharmacy in the area that would sell me some herbal pain remedy, and they sent a girl to deliver the medicine. I remember opening the door, and realizing that the girl who'd come with the pills was my angel from the car wreck.” 

Illya's pen hovered over the notebook he had brought, unsure of what might be important to write down. “A strange coincidence, truly.” 

“Her name was Sophie Greene,” Delgado continued. “And I don't believe in such things as coincidences, so I invited her in. Turned out that she belonged to a bunch of Lubavitchers. Ran away from home and got a job when her father wanted her to marry some schmuck with his own furrier business. I remember thinking, my god, this is a whole clan of people, a whole tribe, who have chosen to live in New York in the 20th century and are still living in 18th century Poland anyway. What must their reality be like?” 

He touched his chest. “And then I saw her chamseh.” He stood up abruptly and began to hobble around the room, clearly excited. “Mr. Kay, do you know what happened in 1492?” 

“Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” Illya recited. “Is that where the chamseh comes from?” 

Delgado shook his head. “Half right, and no. In 1492, the Jews were driven, by royal decree, out of Spain. Well, where did they go?” He waited half a beat before answering his own question. “With Columbus! And they did not go back. They hid among the Indians of the Southwest desert, blending in, carrying on their traditions in secret. And when the missionaries came, they blended in again, pretending to be Indians that had converted to Catholicism. So many layers of pretense, Mr. Kay, so many.” He shook his head. “Who's to know what's real? Who's to remember? 

“Sophie Greene and her chamseh. I thought it was an Indian symbol my mother had taught us, something she'd hid from the priest in the village chapel. I asked her where a nice Jewish girl like her had got it. And she said no, it was the hand of Miriam, it was a blessing from when the Jews escaped bondage in Egypt. It was not an Indian symbol at all. And that was the key to all this.” He waved his hand around at the Jewish artifacts displayed around the room. “All through my childhood, I hadn't been living in Del Rio, California in the 20th century, either. I had been living in Spain, in 1492. That was where time stopped for my family.” 

He gave Illya a small, sheepish smile. “Sorry, I get terribly excited about it still. It's been years...” 

“It's fascinating,” Illya said. “Time seems to have stopped for many people these days.” 

“They don't know the half of it,” Delgado muttered. “But since then, I've been so fascinated by the difference between reality and perception. It's all I really write about.” 

“I can see that.” Illya clicked his pen, feeling a little shaken by the story, and not sure why. “I've read all of them—it's certainly a pervasive theme.” 

Delgado beamed. “I'm working on another one, now. It's a sort of spy novel—less about the grand design of reality, more about the reality of identity. Brainwashing, memory, love. I'm very excited.” 

“Interesting.” Illya sat up a little straighter. “Why spies, of all things?” 

Delgado shrugged. “I don't get out much.” He indicated his leg. “Hard to walk around on this thing. So I sit at home watching TV, and it's all spy shows and cop shows these days. Gives a guy ideas.” 

Illya laughed. “So you get your ideas from television. Recycled ideas, through the media cycle and back again.” 

“Oh, but it's a commentary! On a genre!” Delgado waved his hands, playing along with the joke. “It's very deep, don't you see.” He dropped his hands. “It's awful. But I really am trying to use the structure of something cheap and popular to say something important to me.” 

Illya leaned forward, tapping his pencil theatrically on his chin. “What were you trying to say with _Let Silence Fall_? The, er, anonymous men in black suits who run the world in secret? Was it based on a real experience?” 

Delgado gave him a dumbfounded look. “An experience that every man, woman, and child on Earth has. You didn't catch the subtext?” 

“Perhaps our readers did not,” Illya said cautiously. 

Delgado sighed. “It was a symbol for the oppressions, the divisions, the social boundaries that close us away from each other and keep us from having compassion for people, from being able to connect with them. We're inundated with these messages that are supposed to define us, what our roles are. I decided to embody those messages in the form of faceless men in suits, beings who whisper commands and threats in your ear—but it's a Silence, because we don't talk about them, we're not ever willing to acknowledge that they're there. We forget what we've done as soon as we look away.” 

“So it was all a metaphor.” Illya frowned. It was disappointing, in a way. Two excellent leads and two dead ends in terms of leaks, sources of paranoia, chance encounters with UNCLE or THRUSH that might have led to some illumination. But that was better for Delgado. He found himself liking the man, hoping he wouldn't get mixed up in anything too dangerous. “A metaphor for society.” 

“Most good metaphors are, when you get right down to it,” Delgado said. “As above, so below.” He gestured—above, below. “Anything is a microcosm of society, because we live in it. Anything created by society can be a metaphor for it.” 

“The Somnabulator machine in _Face in the Stars_ ,” Illya said, “was that a metaphor too? It was very technically detailed for a metaphor.” 

“It was a plot device,” Delgado said, “not a real device. A way to solve the problem of the Silence, now that I think about it.” The tone of his voice changed, and Illya suspected that he was beginning to give a speech, something he had memorized and had recited over and over. “We all live in our own little worlds, reacting to influences and connections only we can see, only we can feel. Watching other people is like being in a glass asylum—we see the other inmates around us, embracing shadows and fighting spectres, but we can never know what's really going on in their heads, never really connect with them. We think everyone else is mad. The Somnabulator machine makes that inner world visible to others, forces them to experience what you experience in the most concrete way.” 

“But it was more than just a plot device,” Illya said. “You're not a very technical writer. That much is clear in the rest of your work. You spent an entire chapter outlining the positronic function of the machine, the way it uses photons to interface with the electrical field of the brain on a quantum level, and the way the characters prepared to use it. Why? How did you create all that, when you insist it wasn't important to the story?” 

Delgado laughed nervously. “I was hanging out with Asimov and a few other of the hard sci-fi guys at the time. Maybe their technical knowledge rubbed off on me.” 

“Where did you get the information?” Illya persisted. “Who gave you the idea? How? You said in the introduction to _The Electronic Shepherd_ that you barely understood how your television worked. That was only a few years ago. How do you suddenly understand positronic physics?” 

Delgado's smile became tight, thin. “I suppose I got the design from some kind of secret organization of evil scientists,” he said, “and put it in my book for the hell of it.” 

Illya put down his pen. “We know they have it,” he said. “The question is how you got it.” 

Delgado's face went completely blank in shock. He did not move, barely even breathed, and Illya thought for a terrifying moment that he had bitten down on a cyanide capsule, or had a stroke. He jumped up and waved his hand in front of Delgado's mouth, then pressed his fingers to the side of Delgado's neck, feeling for a pulse. 

Delgado blinked and irritably pushed Illya's hand away. “I'm not dead. I just went into shock for a moment. Pardon me.” He watched as Illya sat back down, resuming his position on the wicker-backed chair. “And here you are, lounging in my chair like we're still having a nice chat.” He gripped his knees, shaking his head slowly back and forth. 

“This can still be a nice chat,” Illya said. “It's really up to you.” 

“I must have known it was coming,” Delgado said. “Everyone else I know has been investigated. What is this really about, Mr. Kay? Un-American activities? Subversion? Are my books ideologically impure?” He got up again, dragging his foot across the room. “At least tell me what agency you're from. The CIA? Or something I haven't heard of?” 

Illya got up, blocking Delgado's exit towards the kitchen. “I don't care about the messages in your books. Neither does my agency.” He dug his UNCLE badge out of his shirt pocket and flashed it at Delgado. “We like it, in fact; you see, we have this idiotically idealistic concept that people can be friends with each other regardless of nationality.” Delgado stopped short up against Illya, peering over his shoulders as though there was someone in the kitchen who might be able to help him, if they could only be alerted. “It's the machine, Mr. Delgado, and that's all.” He gestured past Delgado at the chairs. “Sit down. Please. This can be over quickly.” 

“I was going to make tea,” Delgado said peevishly. “Can't I just make some tea in my own kitchen?” 

Illya considered the chances of Delgado escaping, and sighed. “Fine. Make your tea. I will come with you.” 

“Thank you.” Delgado hobbled past Illya into the kitchen. He measured out some blue dried leaves into a strainer, fussing with a kettle and teapot as Illya leaned against the counter. “I'm making some for you. I hope you don't mind. Helps me think.” He shook his head. “God. I'm making tea for the secret agent who came to interrogate me. What is it about the machine?” 

“You mentioned a secret organization of evil scientists,” Illya said. “If it was a guess, it is a very good guess.” 

“But it's such a cliché.” Delgado set the kettle on the burner, and Illya moved away. “Secret labs, death rays, plotting to take over the world. It can't be real.” 

“The cliché must come from somewhere,” Illya said. “They're called THRUSH. An organization of evil geniuses—well, some geniuses, and some absolute idiots—trying to take over the world.” 

“What's so great about the world?” Delgado muttered. He rummaged in a cupboard. “I usually take it with honey and lemon. Ran out of lemon though. Sophie said she'd come by with the groceries yesterday, but I haven't seen her.” 

“Mr. Delgado,” Illya said sharply, “do you understand what's going on here? You wrote a book that provided, in detail, the mechanism by which a highly dangerous machine, invented in real life by a group of megalomaniac scientists, might be built. That's information you could not have possibly gotten by yourself. Were you ever in contact with THRUSH? Or with North Central Positronic Labs?” The labs had been where they'd found the plans for the device—a THRUSH umbrella company, abandoned hours before Illya and Napoleon had gotten to it. The plans had been next to the device. The thing had been silent, inert, but built according to plan. When Illya had turned it on, nothing had happened, and the device—and blueprints—were locked away in the sub-basements of UNCLE headquarters. 

Delgado slammed a mug down on the counter. “What if I don't believe you? I don't. I think you're making up this bullshit story to scare me into revealing something else.” 

Illya took the mug from Delgado and grabbed his shoulder, turned the man to face him. “Then you won't mind telling me how you got the idea for the machine, if it's such bullshit.” 

Behind them, the kettle began to whistle. “Let me get the water,” Delgado said, his eyes wide. “Just let me get the water.” 

Illya scanned the kitchen quickly. There were no knives in sight, and the only door to the kitchen was through the living room; a window looked out onto the outside, through which he could see green. He moved between Delgado and the door, carefully keeping himself out of easy throwing range of the hot water. “Make your tea.” 

Delgado nodded, and Illya watched his back as he busied himself with the business of tea. “The problem is,” he said, “if I actually tell you how I dreamed up that gadget, you're going to think I'm lying. But it's the truth. I thought I was going crazy. Now...I think, maybe not. But, you know...” He turned around and gave Illya a steaming mug. “Going crazy was the simplest option.” 

Illya accepted the mug, turning it around and around in his hands. He leaned against the doorway, as though they were once again two acquaintances having a chat. “Tell me the truth, then. It might not be as crazy as you think.” 

“It started after I broke my leg. Do you know, that was when I started to write?” Delgado sniffed the tea, and slowly, Illya could see his face relaxing. “I never wrote a word before I did that. Some poems. But after that, it was though the stories were telling themselves, unfolding in my head. Sing in me, O Muse!” He gestured towards Illya. “Try the tea. It's very good stuff, I promise.” 

Illya sniffed at it. It was almost odorless, but the liquid in the cup was a delicate, pale blue. “What's it made from?” 

“Some sort of flower that grows on a mountain in Tibet. Supposed to be good for the joints. Sophie brings me a batch every month.” Delgado sipped it delicately, and Illya finally tried his. It was hot and almost flavorless, but when the liquid hit the back of his tongue it tasted strangely cold, like the taste of ice frozen over a blade of green grass. 

“Well, one night, I had these dreams that—did you ever have a dream, and you knew it was a dream, and you wanted to wake up but you just couldn't?” Illya nodded, and Delgado continued. “Everyone has. Don't remember exactly what they were about. I was running away from something, I think. Someone. Well, when I woke up, I couldn't move. I knew I was awake, I just couldn't open my eyes. And then it all came to me in this...this burst of blue light. Like a migraine all at once. And when I woke up...” Delgado shrugged. “There it was, in my head, clear as day.” 

Illya stared at Delgado over the rim of the mug. “It came to you in a dream,” he said, “really?” 

“You don't believe me? Fine. I don't have any other story.” Delgado took a long, placid sip of his tea. “It wasn't like any other dream I've ever had. Didn't feel like one. I've spent a long time wondering what entity contacted me, and why. If it was your evil scientists, I don't know why they picked me.” 

Illya frowned at his cup, then looked up. “Have you received any other...communications, like this one?” 

“That was it,” Delgado said, voice lowered. “That was the only thing. Everything since then...” He tapped his temple. “It's like it opened the floodgates. I haven't had more dreams like that, if you still want to call them dreams. But the ideas...the things I perceive...” 

“Are of far less interest to us than the actual plans to build actual machines,” Illya said. But, he thought, shadowy men in suits who control the world. Who must be stopped. And The Electronic Shepherd—the race of robot-kings, positronic brains created with perfect logic and no compassion, built by a cabal of scientists who considered themselves the heirs to Plato's Republic, who looked at the world and found its chaos unsatisfactory...what source was Delgado tapping into? What truth was hidden in his books? 

He finished his tea and set down the mug. “Mr. Delgado,” he said, “whatever caused this vision is something we're very interested in. I have no intention of turning you in for subversion or anything else. But we may require your assistance.” He dug a card out of his pocket and held it out to Delgado. It had UNCLE's logo embossed on it, Illya's initials, and the number of a phone line that was carefully monitored. “If you have any more visions of this sort, please do not hesitate to call.” 

Delgado took the card gingerly. “How do I know I can trust you?” he asked. 

“If you really thought you didn't,” Illya said, “you wouldn't be asking that question.” And he took his leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) A lot of this is vaguely true in some way or another!  
> 2) A lot of this is based on other fiction in some way or another!


	5. TVC15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They cruise in unmarked vans  
> Your thoughts are in their hands  
> Control you with a shock of light
> 
> They're done with TV screens  
> They're using all these laser beams  
> You'll dream of microwaves tonight  
> \--”No Interest,” The Epoxies

Illya got into the station wagon and turned on the radio. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths, one after the other. He wasn't sure what he had learned from Delgado yet, what Delgado's story might signify. Several years of chasing down increasingly desperate, ludicrous leads had deadened either his instincts or his certainty, any confidence he might have had that he was able to separate signal from noise. 

He turned on the radio and began to back out of his parking space. 

“...the new single from Curt Wild and the Wylde Rattz. Now, this is a little bit of a departure for them, but I kinda like it. What do you think, listeners?” the DJ chattered, his frantic voice fading into nothingness as a sedately twanging bass drowned him out. The melody was relaxing, the sound soothing, until the singer's flat Midwestern voice crooned out the first verse: 

_Illya came flyin' from far across the sea  
Wanted to join the U-N-C-L-E   
They gave him a badge and they gave him a gun   
Shootin' bad guys was so much fun   
They said hey, Illya, take a walk on the wild side   
Hey Illya! Take a walk on the wild side! _

Illya accelerated directly into the front bumper of the Buick behind him, shoved the car into forward, and drove wildly down the street. 

He turned up the radio, heart pounding in his chest. The singer launched into another verse, something about Candy from out on the island. Had he misheard the lyrics? He could be going mad. Paranoid, delusional. Was the stress of the constant search for THRUSH, the anxiety of Fremont's ravings, getting to him? Had someone slipped him something psychedelic? Just what had been in that tea?

“Illya,” said Napoleon's voice, fading in over the strings of the music, “Illya, can you hear me? Respond if you can hear me.” 

Illya glanced down at his communicator, which sat in the hollow of the cupholder next to his leg. It had been utterly silent. “I can hear you.” 

“Good,” said Napoleon cheerfully. “I'm glad it worked. This car's stereo has been converted into a communicator, of sorts. We thought it would be easier to contact you this way.” 

“Yes,” Illya said faintly. “You might warn a fellow. I almost crashed the car.” 

“We did try to warn you. I suppose it wasn't direct enough.” Napoleon chuckled warmly. “Sorry about that. But God, Illya, it's so good to hear your voice.” 

Illya frowned and slid to a stop at a red light. “We talked just a few hours ago. Are you all right, Napoleon? You sound...” The light changed to green, suddenly. “You sound rested.” 

“I'm fine, Illya.” Napoleon's voice sounded cheerful, and Illya could almost convince himself there was a hint of mania in there. Black Beauties, he thought. Amphetamines were supposed to be for field agents only, but Napoleon had never needed them, citing the natural high of adrenaline as a preferable stimulant. Maybe now, shackled to a desk, he had started a new habit. 

“I'm going to come back to the office,” Illya said carefully. “I have some information I need to share with you.”

“No!” A burst of static almost obscured the exclamation. “No,” Napoleon said, more calmly, “don't come back to the office. We need you at that riot.” 

“It's hours away,” Illya said. He merged onto the expressway, glancing in the rearview mirror, wondering if he was being followed. He never was, these days. Perhaps the habit had nothing to do with caution; perhaps it was a way to reassure himself that he was still relevant, that his work for U.N.C.L.E. still meant something. “I'll come in to check on you. We can go out to lunch, if you like. How does that sound?” 

“No,” Napoleon said. He cleared his throat. “That's not what we need. Your findings from Delgado can wait. We need you to blend into the riot tonight. I want you to devote your time to that.” 

“How?” A pink Cadillac was drifting into Illya's lane. Illya slapped the car horn, and the Cadillac swerved away. “Attending is one thing. Trying to act as though I belong...” 

“Come on, you're a master of disguise. I'm sure you can slap on some fake stubble and—” 

“Napoleon, these men are blue-collar, anti-immigrant, deeply suspicious of intellectuals. How do you think a Russian with an English accent will fit into this— _fucking maniac idiot_ —” The pink Cadillac was back, lunging out of his peripheral vision to cut off his access to the exit ramp that would have allowed him entry back into Manhattan. He leaned on the horn. “I'm sorry, this idiot out for a joyride, he almost killed me...” He shifted his eyes to the rearview mirror, hoping against hope that the Cadillac would be following him, that he could justify the twinges of his heart and the shaking of his hands with a rousing freeway chase. 

But the vehicle was gone, a pink blur up the ramp, slipping into island traffic as he sped on past the exit. 

“Oh,” Napoleon's voice said, seeming very pleased with itself, “I think you'll do fine. Go get lunch at the greasiest spoon you can find, and keep me posted.” 

Illya gritted his teeth. “Over and out,” he snapped, and switched off the radio. 

*

New York had seemed like a beautiful, clean paradise in 1962. Cleaner than Moscow, anyway. Miles of dove-gray concrete, unbroken and smooth, and shimmering glass towers. Everyone on the streets had seemed prosperous, tasteful, well-groomed and mature. “Nostalgia,” Illya reminded himself, “is the first sign of senility.” That was all his memories, of course, and his memories were over a decade old. But it was no wonder that the New York he'd seen with young eyes was an increasing contrast to the one he saw now. 

All he could see was decay and ugliness. The sidewalks were pitted and cracked, green with weeds that were constantly trampled by the boots and stiletto heels of pedestrians. The glass windows were smeared, the metal tarnished, the bricks crumbling. Sickly yellow sodium lights and the glare of neon nagged at the corner of his eyes, flashes of pink and blue that made him nauseated. It was as though there was a veneer of grime over everything he saw, something that would leach into the skin of the city and eat its heart away. 

Women wrapped in bright colors, teased hair, snapping their gum, catcalled him without much enthusiasm or vigor. A blonde boy in cut-offs who should have been playing stickball eyed him, licked his lips. Men in worn trenchcoats filled with secrets, not state secrets, not anything that would have justified them holding their coats so close against their bodies, brimmed hats pulled downward, no chance of looking anyone in the eyes; the secrets on these streets were petty, mean little things, personal and sordid. One of them held out a blue pill to Illya. “Hey, mister, you look like you could use a pick me up. How about it?” 

Illya sidestepped him and backed into someone large, turned around to find a tall black man in a dashiki staring at him. “Nasikitika,” Illya said, “nasikitika.” He moved quickly away, melting into the crowd. 

“What,” he heard the man say, “what'd he call me? You hear what he called me?” The crowd closed around Illya, the colors and faces and words and the sounds of the traffic swirling around him into a blur. 

Illya ducked into a diner and slid onto a stool at the Formica counter. He ordered a club sandwich and tried to make himself comfortable, assuring himself that his disorientation was only a result of not having had any breakfast. Napoleon's instructions to get himself lunch had surely been a joke, but it was still good advice. Never pass up a chance to eat. 

He focused on the television set propped up in the corner, trying to ground himself. A blonde woman in a black catsuit aimed a gun at him and froze. “Cinnamon Carter stars as Mallory Sterling, agent of ISIS, in 'Tropic Heat',” the television said. The woman on the screen cradled an enormous gun in her arms like a baby and aimed it at a man in a military dress uniform, who stood on a balcony. A gout of blood erupted from his chest, and he toppled over the side of the balcony. Cinnamon blew the smoke from her gun and pursed her lips at the screen. 

“It's all right when beautiful people kill,” the television said, in a strange, low register. “There are beautiful people in the world who are killing people. You shouldn't care. The government kills people who want to hurt you. You shouldn't care. Death is fun. It's pretty. Nobody cares if people die, as long as they're people who aren't you.” 

Illya watched, fascinated and certain he was going mad, as the images on the screen shifted. Another blonde woman—the newscaster, always so poised and perfect. She grinned, and the voice that emitted from the television didn't match the movements of her lips at all. 

“The world wants to hurt you,” she said. “You should fear other people. They're out to hurt you. People who have less than you hate you. They want to take what you have. You should want to hurt them back.” She tossed her head back and laughed. “You'll be rich someday if you don't help anyone! We promise! You're better than everyone else, so why shouldn't you be rich? Nobody else deserves your help.” 

Another set of images. The war in Vietnam, still going strong. American soldiers crawling through tropical underbrush, looking defeated, lackadaisical. A map of Vietnam, key points circled in red. “The war won't end. This is how things will be forever. We have always been killing other people. We have always been at war. We will always be at war. Death is normal. War is normal.” 

A waitress set a plate with a sandwich and fries in front of Illya. “Are you hearing this?” he asked her. He gestured at the television screen. “Are you hearing this at all?” 

The woman looked up at the screen and sighed. “Yeah. Another six months, then they're going to start ramping it down. Sure.” She sighed. “It's always been another six months. I got a brother there. Says he's eating so much rice his eyes've gone all slanty.” 

Illya ate his sandwich while trying to ignore the drone of the television's commands. “If you don't buy this, you'll be an outcast,” the television said. “If you don't buy this, you'll die. If you don't buy this, nobody will love you. If you don't buy this, you're less of a man.” He didn't even look up to see what product the television was trying to sell him. It didn't matter. 

He eavesdropped on the conversation of the people around him. The waitress was telling a woman at the end of the counter about the necklace her boyfriend had bought her. Two other women were complaining about their school-aged children. A young couple softly made plans for a picnic in Central park. Three old men in the corner booth chatted about their favorite actresses who were all dead now. Nothing was terribly out of the ordinary, nothing was even violent or terribly duplicitious, or inexplicably revealing. His hallucinations were confined to the television itself—but what kind of hallucinations only came to you through TV? Were they even hallucinations, or was everyone else so inoculated to the blandly imperious demands of the television that they had ceased to register? 

Illya left, and went home to change into something more befitting a working-class rally. When he got to his apartment, he unplugged the TV, and then the radio, and then the telephone, just for good measure.


	6. Night Rally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I would send out for assistance but there's someone on the signal wire_  
>  And the corporation logo is flashing on and off in the sky  
> They're putting all your names in the forbidden book  
> I know what they're doing but I don't want to look   
> **—“Night Rally,” Elvis Costello**

Illya tried on three outfits, and none of them were remotely fitting. The black turtleneck he usually wore in an attempt to blend into the background of any milieu made him look like an aging beatnik. The flannel shirt, jeans, and workboots that he thought might make him look like some kind of outdoorsman signaled “Christopher Street bottom” now, especially with the delicacy of his face. Putting on a white tank top made him look no more butch, but put him in mind of the young man he'd seen earlier, the one who'd licked his lips in sordid invitation. 

He grunted in disgust and changed back into the unhip, professorial blazer and turtleneck, topped off by his thick black glasses. It was the outfit he'd been invited to the rally in—surely it would pass for something like normal. Fashion hadn't changed so much as its meaning had, the message sent by simple clothes now a subversion of everything they once stood for. Everyone seemed to be in costume, in disguise, and it made creating a simple fake identity nearly impossible. 

He straightened the paisley tie he'd added to his ensemble and looked in the mirror. He still looked young, far too young. Younger than he'd looked that morning. How was that possible? His face was fresh, babyish, his cheekbones tightly rounded, nothing like the subtle sagging of the jowls he'd seen in the mirror that morning. The lines that had begun to creep over his face, at the corners of his mouth and around his eyes, were gone—the grooves of thought that appeared when he wrinkled his forehead in confusion remained, but only as long as he did not school his expression into neutrality. His hair was the same, but not really; the uncared-for hair, down around his ears and creeping over his neck, looked hip and careless, rather than old and uncaring. 

Illya had been dosed with hallucinogens before. There was always a sensation of physical disorientation, the giddy whirl of a world gone off its rocker around you. Usually there were other physical symptoms—crawling or itching of the skin, thirst or nausea, some kind of disconnection to your body itself. Nothing would be perfect; there would be random smears of color, things that popped in and out of existence, auras and patterns, visions that you could only see out of the corner of your eye. No drug he knew of could produce something as seamless and subtle at this. Mere delusion, then, but what was the delusion? That he had once been old? 

*

The road took him past little brick boxes, painted mint green and sky blue and custard yellow, where he could see lights on in the houses when the sun started to set. Then to neighborhoods where the houses were taller, made of wood, with ornate gables and sagging front porches, ivy and ragweed exploding out of their peeling and rotted shells. And then there was a strip of nothing but grass, ragged and tall, waving sullenly in the light of the waning sun, and above their rattling yellow seedheads stood the towers of the factories. 

Illya maneuvered the station wagon into the industrial park, watching for any signs of a gathering. The factories had clearly been shut down already. The huge metal tanks and metal towers that dotted the park were dark, unlit, and he saw signs of rust on the ladders and scaffolding that supported them. He could see machinery clearly through the windows of the factories, the glass already broken in some places. The machines were silent and still. A single pipe, rising high above the welter of metal and plastic, spurted a sad gout of flame, like a guttering candle. 

Eventually he began to see more cars—pickup trucks and station wagons trundling along on paths parallel to his, roads that twisted in and out of inexplicable cul-de-sacs and expanses of concrete where metal dumpsters and crates sat empty. He followed them as well as he could, the station wagon juddering over speed bumps and gigantic cracks in the pavement. Eventually, he came to the point where the road was clogged with cars that were still and silent, too. He turned off the engine and put his glasses on, walking forward, wending his way among the cars. 

The FAPpers had set up camp in a gigantic parking lot, a rectangle of clear space surrounded on all four sides by the red and brown brick of the factories. Someone had brought strands of red, white, and blue fairy lights and strung them up on the walls of the factories, festooning the pipes and ladders that littered the brick facades with pools of light. The strings of lights all led to a generator which purred calmly away in a corner, surrounded by stacked gas cans. Illya wondered how many FAPpers had hoarded their gas rations to pay for the hours of light. 

He wandered around the square a little, pushing his way past men and women clad in jeans and overalls, flannel and t-shirts, leather jackets and puffy coats. There were oil drum bonfires set up at periodic intervals, people standing around them and warming their hands, sipping what was probably coffee from Styrofoam cups. Illya saw card tables with boxes of donuts carefully stacked, cases of beer out in the open—the beer had barely been touched, although a few die-hard enthusiasts clutched cans in their gloved hands, grimly sipping. There didn't seem to be anywhere obvious that people were getting the coffee. He smelled smoke, smelled meat, and followed his nose to where someone had set up a makeshift grill in a hinged oil drum. A squat woman, frizzy hair tied back in a messy ponytail, was handing out hot dogs in buns to anyone passing by. 

Illya took a hot dog and nodded his thanks, then wended his way towards the stage. It was a makeshift affair, a wooden platform with a card table and a loudspeaker. He stole a glance at his watch—it was 5:30, and the cloudless sky was darkening, a faint blue glow emanating from behind the mass of brick where the sun was setting. Whatever they had planned for the riot, whatever demagoguery or violence would take place, he had thirty minutes to prepare for it. 

He leaned against the edge of the stage and scanned the crowd. The bulky winter clothing most of the attendees wore made it difficult to tell who had a weapon. There didn't even seem to be any obvious leaders, organizers, or guards—people wandered at random, chatting to each other, distributing food or drinks, congregating in small clumps and then breaking up again. He chewed on the hot dog and tried to track the movements of the group, watching for patterns. The hot dog tasted burnt and chemical. 

Suddenly, the patterns of the crowd became clear. They were organized into little clumps, never more than five or six, everyone standing around with a cup or a can or a donut or a hot dog in their hands. Someone would join a clump, chat for a minute or two, and then someone else would break off and join another clump of people. Information was being transmitted, like termites in a hive or neurons in a brain, and something vital was being disseminated. Every so often, the people who broke off from a group at the same time would congregate together, forming another clump, before hurriedly breaking apart and insinuating themselves into another conversation. 

He finished his hot dog, feeling as though the protein had cleared his head. The brick walls of the factory lit by the colored lights, the blue sky, the smell of the roasting hot dogs, the massed flesh of the people around him—it was all very real, very tangible. It was a relief to realize that. Surely this reality couldn't slip apart on him, no mysterious messages could get through to him, in the midst of all this reality, this humanity. 

Illya found himself with a cup of coffee in his hand, somehow. He sipped at it and winced when the burnt liquid stung his tongue. Nonetheless, it was getting colder and the coffee was warm, so he held it to his face and breathed in the fumes. It was unpleasantly fragrant and comforting, redolent with the smell of bad coffee anywhere. Everything was so very much in focus, so very real. 

He heard snatches of conversation. 

“—fucking foreman grabbed my ass while I was working a goddamn miter saw. Wouldn't bother with the asshole except I had my hand right next to a goddamn moving blade, damn fucking safety hazard, so I chewed him out a new one and they sacked me the next day—” 

“—was gonna send Sally to college, y'know, the pension plan was great, and six months before I retired this shit happens and they're tellin' me I ain't eligible for the pension, like it's my damn fault I won't up and move the family to Mexico—” 

“—fucking Spics reproducing like animals, just don't know when to stop, I tell ya the whole neighborhood's gone brown these days, I walk down the street and I don't understand nobody—” 

“—just never came back from the war, he never really did, I mean he's sitting right in my living room watching Wheel of Fortune but I know his mind's right back there in Da Nang—” 

“—a man can't provide for his family anymore because nobody respects the gol-dang paterfamilias is the problem, this Women's Lib bull-pucky, they want my wife to go out and work on the line and a man can't catch a break—” 

“—it's the liberal media is what it is, nobody respects the office of the President, they call cops pigs, they call soldiers baby-killers, they say politicians are crooks, well how do you expect the country to do anything when you're out there saying it's all just a heap of junk—” 

The voices blurred together, a whirl of complaint and fear. Illya drifted into groups, nodded and sipped coffee, drifted out again. At every moment, it seemed as though the voices were on the verge of coalescing into a unified voice, something that would deliver him an answer he didn't know he was looking for. And at the same time, they threatened to overwhelm him, to swallow up his mind in their babble. 

And then a squeal of feedback cut through the noise. It echoed off the brick walls, sending its jagged vibrations up to the dirty blue sky, and workboots shuffled and heads turned as the crowd gravitated towards the stage. Illya found himself swept up in the wave. He clutched his Styrofoam cup to his chest, the rapidly cooling liquid sloshing onto his shirt, the warmth seeping through to his skin, tacky and unpleasant. 

“Friends of the American People!” The voice was nasal, drawling, eminently familiar, and the end of the sentence was drowned out by a cacophony of cheers. Illya pushed his way to the edge of the stage, his glasses skewed on his nose, and stared up in a parody of worship at F. Ferris Fremont. 

The man didn't look anything like Illya had imagined. He was wiry and gangling, all flailing arms and legs, jutting nose and black hair combed back from his forehead. Sharp black eyes stared through thick square glasses, roving over the crowd, and at last that piercing gaze settled on Illya. 

“Friends,” F. Ferris intoned, “Americans, countrymen...” He grinned, and to Illya it looked predatory. He nodded to himself, chuckling, and to Illya it sounded like the low growl a cat makes while it stalks its prey. “I have your ears. And I hope, oh, I hope...” He placed his hand over his heart, as though pledging allegiance. “I hope I have your hearts.” Another round of cheers. “I hope I've placed the truth into your heart, friends. I hope I've started a fire within you—a fire for justice. A fire for victory...victory over the forces of darkness that are claiming our nation!” 

Illya looked around as F. Ferris continued on. It was the same empty rhetoric any politician from any party tended to spout, and it was almost a relief. Perhaps all this was simply a platform for F. Ferris to launch a formal political career. Illya started composing his report to Napoleon in his head. _F. Ferris Fremont's constituent base is vocal and radically right-wing, nativist, and paranoid. His entry into politics seems a bid to gain power, but also to legitimize himself within the political process. However, this may alienate his followers who see him as a grassroots leader and a Washington outsider, and his views are also likely to alienate him from the more moderate Beltway crowd—his influence on American politics may, ironically, wane. But there is a slim chance that he may actually gain some true influence in Washington, which we have to be on the lookout for..._

F. Ferris dropped his voice, hunching into the microphone as though sharing a secret. His eyes darted from left to right, and he paused every few seconds to allow the cheers and boos coming from the audience to die down. “I'm speaking, of course,” he intoned, “of the members of the New World Order. You know them, of course—the Communists and Illuminatis who control the United Nations and those filthy Democrats, all of them using underhanded and Satanic techniques to weaken the resolve and the strength of our great country. And today, friends...today we see the fruits of that labor.” 

He balled his hand into a fist and shook it at the audience. “No fruits for you, friends, and no labor! The factories are cold, the machines still. And why? One word, friends...Greed.” 

This was exciting. Was Illya about to witness the beginning of a genuine populist movement right there in Hoboken? Perhaps, beneath all the half-baked conspiracy theories and off-kilter rants, beat the heart of someone who truly had the best interests of the workers at heart. 

F. Ferris opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it. He pointed up, slowly, at the sky. 

“Do you hear that?” 

Illya strained his ears. The only sound was the murmuring of the crowd, the faint squeal of the microphone, and the whoosh of wind far in the distance. But as F. Ferris pointed at what seemed like random places in the sky, the crowd began to mill, and the murmur became louder. The wind picked up, scattering dead leaves and pieces of paper around the feet of the crowd. 

“I knew it, friends!” F. Ferris bellowed. “This is about what I said today, yes. You were all listening? You all heard me?” He shook his finger at the crowd. “It's the United Nations' goons! I knew they existed, friends, but I've never seen them before today—and here they are to show their corrupt faces! Their infernal machines!” 

Illya squinted at the sky. It was dark blue now, blank and pure with the cold stars of winter. 

He closed one eye, and suddenly his ears were battered by the deafening slap of helicopter blades. The sky was filled with huge black helicopters, bulbous and sleek, and he gaped in awe, staring at the bellies of the choppers. They were so low that he could see—no, it wasn't possible at that height, and yet he could—their bellies bristling with microphones and the flared lenses of cameras, and he could even pick out the United Nations logos stenciled on their bellies in iridescent decals. 

Illya's other eye shot open, and the helicopters disappeared. The only noises were the crowd, the wind. 

Experimentally, he closed his other eye, and he almost laughed. People were ducking, shouting in terror...from a toy helicopter zooming around the brick courtyard. One single toy helicopter. The crowd was panicking, screaming and pointing at the sky. 

He should contact Napoleon, he thought...but the helicopter had to be controlled by someone nearby, and it would be better to discover the perpetrator before he made his report. He opened both eyes again to search— 

—and the helicopter disappeared. One moment it was buzzing over the grill that now held shriveled burnt hot dogs, and one moment it was gone. It hadn't even flown into the shadows or to some other place Illya could not see. It had simply blinked out of existence. 

The crowd was still screaming. Illya turned around and around, trying to orient himself and gain some kind of idea of what was going on. He was no longer used to being so deeply in the thick of confusion. The past few years, he had been eased out of field duty, had only witnessed riots and mayhem from the point of view of an observer, a reader. Spending so long out of action must have dulled the skills that allowed him to assess a situation like this from a calm, objective point of view even while he was physically in the middle of it; this was confusion, and it would not let up for him. 

He felt bodies pressed up against him, pushing and shoving, kicking him. He heard the sound of breaking glass, the whoosh of a fire starting. The generator, he thought, and the cans of gasoline. The parking lot was large, but hemmed in by so much brick—the crowd, at this density, would surely jam itself in. 

Illya tried to squeeze through the seething bodies, looking for a safe place to contact Napoleon. Surely there could be someplace, a cranny or corner out of the way that he could pull out his communicator. He elbowed and shoved, and after a moment he had managed to create a kind of logjam of bodies around himself—it was close enough, and he could only hope that nobody would hear him in the roar of the crowd. 

He fished in his pocket, drew out his communicator, held it up to his face. “Napoleon,” he said, “I'm at the riot, I don't know what's going on, there are black helicopters or a toy helicopter or nothing, send backup, it's going to get violent, there is a fire, Napoleon—” 

“Hey!” He heard the voice, loud and angry and rough, as if from a far distance or underwater. “Hey! He's talkin' to one of those gadgets! He's one of them!” And then something heavy slammed against the back of his head and the world went black.


	7. Outline for the rest of the story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This WIP is going to be abandoned. I spent a lot of time and energy shaping it, but as I was finally able to launch into writing it, I found myself moving into a phase of my life that involved working on other projects. I regret that I won't be able to finish it, but I don't regret the experience of having written it. Thanks to everyone who read what there is so far.

Illya Kuryakin awakes from frightening dreams including a corrupt Napoleon mysteriously interrogating him in what proves to be the men's room of the UNCLE. He is in a co-op in Brooklyn, Aramchek or "the high tower," where he was rescued from the riot and nursed back to health. The girl who rescued him is Delgado's friend Sophie. Her co-op is a group of ex-Lubavitcher hippies who are convinced that the world is secretly being controlled by malevolent forces and are using the blue tea to dose people they think can help them uncover the truth. 

Illya, having been given this information, goes back to Napoleon and gives his report on the riot in Hoboken. He gives Napoleon a slightly edited version of his experience in the co-op. Napoleon informs Illya that the U.S. government is providing UNCLE with funds to spy on subversive groups, and assigns Illya to the Aramchek. Illya unhappily leaves and spends several weeks hanging out with the Jewish hippies, drinking blue tea, and experiencing an increasingly surreal world. At one point, he revisits the site of the riots and discovers that the factories are working, and are churning out all sorts of consumer goods stamped with THRUSH logos. 

When he reports this to Napoleon, Napoleon sadly informs Illya that he thinks Illya has gotten paranoid, and that they have decided that THRUSH is completely defunct. He tells Illya to take a vacation. Illya storms off into the storage vaults of UNCLE and finds the Somnabulator. He fiddles with the controls, and walks out into a UNCLE where the corridors go on forever. He walks through them and never finds a doorway. This goes on for what seems like years, as though it is a dream. Illya gets frustrated and begins to punch a wall, and this causes the corridors to crumble into... 

Illya has a vision where he speaks with an alternate universe version of Napoleon, who is head of a thriving UNCLE and walks him through a clean, prosperous, and diverse New York City. In this universe, UNCLE revealed the truth about THRUSH to an angry public and enlisted international assistance to completely eradicate them once and for all. However, Napoleon decided to create a campaign convincing the public that THRUSH is still an active force for evil, because he believes that the world is going to tear itself apart through nuclear war without UNCLE's oversight. UNCLE now effectively works as an advising force for all countries on Earth and effectively controls the governments of most nations. 

This alternate Napoleon informs Illya that he is aware that the universe Illya lives in is controlled by THRUSH, and that he has a plan to change that. Illya asks Napoleon where he is in this alternate universe. Napoleon explains that Illya lost his life while ensuring that UNCLE had the code to the quantum computers that could control reality. Illya wakes up in his own bed feeling chilled, unsure that the alternate universe is that much better. 

Delgado contacts Illya and informs him that he has had a vision of a "beautiful extraterrestrial" who informed Delgado that he was coming to save the world from nuclear annhilation. Illya personally dismisses the vision, but learns that Major Tom, an astronaut who just spent a year in orbit, had the same vision and went on national TV to spread the "beautiful starman"'s vision. Suddenly, people all over the world are having the same vision. Members of Aramchek are receiving even more detailed visions of extraterrestrial weapons, and are publishing pamphlets detailing how to use them. Napoleon orders a raid on the compound, worried, and the Jewish hippies manage to kill seven agents and wound a dozen more. Illya searches for Sophie, his contact. He receives a vision from her telling him that she was working for the alternate universe UNCLE all along, and that her work there is done. 

Meanwhile, the pamphlets are circulating. The weapons are simple things made with household items, but only by following the very odd instructions can one make them work--there are tasers, zip guns, sound-throwing devices, disintegrators. The crime rate suddenly rises sharply. The city is in chaos. Oddly, F. Ferris Fremont decries the visions of the alien, claiming that it's a UNCLE plot to keep the populace in check and create a One World Government once and for all. Napoleon is convinced that the alien is secretly the work of THRUSH, and apologizes to Illya for having made the decision that THRUSH was defunct. He puts Illya in charge of investigating the alien sightings. Illya meets with armed resistance on several occasions. The UNCLE labs are hard at work trying to create devices that will neutralize the weapons, but nothing works, and Illya and Napoleon fear for the total breakdown of society itself. 

At last, the alien claims that he will be arriving in Central Park. F. Ferris Fremont tells his followers to meet the alien with all of its weapons to show them that humans cannot be ruled. Napoleon sends every UNCLE agent that he can possibly muster to defend the world from THRUSH. Illya has by now lost contact with the alternate universe UNCLE altogether, but is convinced that it is them. He stops by Delgado's house to pick him up. They are both looking forward to seeing Sophie again. 

THE END


End file.
